The History Channel flubs another one.
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The History Channel recently ran a documentary supporting the theory that Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan were secretly captured by the Japanese military. The centerpiece of the show was a recently discovered photograph of a pier in the Marshall Islands (which were occupied by the Japanese at that time). The photo is really blurry and shows two people who might be the aviators. There is also a barge with a blob that might be an airplane.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/05/us/new-amelia-earhart-photo-trnd/index.html
It turns out the photo was taken in 1935 (or shortly before) and was published in a Japanese book in that year. The photo was digitized and put online in 2011 (if I am reading the site correctly).
http://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/1223403/99?itemId=info:ndljp/pid/1223403&contentNo=99&__lang=en
I guess the yolk is on the History Channel's screen on this one.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/05/us/new-amelia-earhart-photo-trnd/index.html
It turns out the photo was taken in 1935 (or shortly before) and was published in a Japanese book in that year. The photo was digitized and put online in 2011 (if I am reading the site correctly).
http://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/1223403/99?itemId=info:ndljp/pid/1223403&contentNo=99&__lang=en
I guess the yolk is on the History Channel's screen on this one.
Comments
What do you expect from a channel that airs Pawn Stars, Ice Road Truckers and UFO Hunters?
Not to mention Ancient Aliens.
What do you expect from a channel that airs Pawn Stars, Ice Road Truckers and UFO Hunters?
Came to say this lol It's TV. Almost no channel is spared these days from nonsense.
PBS is just as bad with their stuff. The Ken Burns documentary on World War 2 claimed there was a race riot in my dad's home town outside Youngstown but nobody in the town or historical society remembered it so they had to do a retraction. It was actually just a labor dispute and not a race thing.
More sensationalized reality shows which are worthless IMHO and less of the content that made them who they were. It doesn't matter if it is true, ratings and press coverage is what they are after.
I am very much a capitalist who believes in free markets but this type of nonsense is what happens when publicly trade companies focus strictly on the bottomline. Today, you could create the most amazing, accurate History or Science channel, and if you have any moderate success, you will get acquired by one of the big content making companies. At that point, the pressure from corporate will come in to "expand" so that you can get more viewers and, thus, more ad revenue.
Ever since the days of MTV (as already mentioned) the easiest way for a channel to make money is through reality TV. I don't know why but mass groups of people eat that stuff up. So your amazing, wonderful, truthful station will play a single reality TV show and your ratings will go "through the roof" for that hour. And, thus begins your channels downward spiral to crappiness.
This has happened to awesome stations like MTV, VH1, Discovery, TLC, Family Channel (yes, I'll throw the ORIGINAL family channel in here), Nickelodeon, A&E and countless others.
TL;DR: Reality TV is a soul killer for any station, but it's a guaranteed money maker. So far, I've yet to see a single, good station not succumb to this spiral. People love train wrecks or crafted stories that feel "real". So long as this is the stuff the masses want, every station will eventually start making this material in search of "cash cows".
TL;DR: Reality TV is a soul killer for any station, but it's a guaranteed money maker. So far, I've yet to see a single, good station not succumb to this spiral. People love train wrecks or crafted stories that feel "real". So long as this is the stuff the masses want, every station will eventually start making this material in search of "cash cows".
The main reason stations put out reality TV is because they're very cheap & easy to create. Aside from the host, the cast are random fools (no need for actors) and everything they say/do is done on-the-fly (no need for writers). The shows aren't a guaranteed money maker, but they do serve as cheap filler for time slots networks don't want to invest resources in.